There is a tradition in India of civil servants writing books. As a former civil servant, I value these for their contribution to the historical record, and for helping improve the intellectual climate through post-mortem debate. Duvvuri Subbarao represents the best combination of intellectual and professional prowess, and humility that the Indian civil services display. All his books are special — his latest, Just A Mercenary: Notes from my Life and Career, is no exception.
Three ingredients make up this well-established genre. First is the first-person view of life and events. Here, the author has to make difficult judgements on how much she would like to share, especially when she gets privileged access to confidential and inside information on account of the office she held. Every civil servant should carry some stories to her grave, and there has to be a sense of propriety with the stories told.
The second ingredient is a window into the deeper strategy at play, which generally cannot be fully articulated at the time. It makes room for an omniscient reader watching the events unfold.
Finally, the third ingredient is reflection. With the passage of time, the best civil servants are able to look back and reflect dispassionately. They are able to discuss the problems of India through a frame larger than themselves or the organisations they served. They show their regrets for the paths not taken, and the strategic thinking which failed to take root in the din and fury of execution and fire-fighting.
Every book by a civil servant can be weighed against these three ingredients. Many write multiple books. Each can have differing ratios of the three ingredients, and an author’s collection represents the full picture of all of them.
Autobiographies can be ego trips, a combination of truth and embellishment that makes the author look good. Subbarao has avoided falling into this trap and has been open and self-critical. I found the last chapter, his letter to his late mother, the best part of the book. This chapter, like the rest, shows us the Subbarao that we admire and love: The self-effacing, caring, shy and non-demonstrative person.
With two books published, Subbarao has amply engaged in the first two ingredients. As readers, we are now thirsty for the third ingredient, of reflection, of his journey of ideas with the benefit of hindsight.
A fascinating chapter describes his attempt as collector of his first district to restore land to the tribal communities as mandated by the land related legislation/regulations in the “agency areas”. Governments of the newly independent India attempted serious land reforms and redistribution of ceiling surplus land as an important component of development and poverty alleviation. Three or so decades later, in what may be loosely called land reforms round two, many states had passed legislation of the kind described by the author in this chapter. These laws essentially undid registered market transactions in land with retrospective effect. We now have reasonable evidence to show that these land reforms did not lead to serious poverty alleviation or economic development.
The author recounts the transactional part of the tribal-land story in a lively manner. Soon thereafter, the author was a participant and witness to the more market-oriented reforms of the early 1990s where the attempt was not redistribution of a limited-sized cake — it was making a bigger cake. There is a natural springboard to a deeper discussion on law as an instrument of asset redistribution and economic change, the failure of land reforms and ceiling surplus legislation, etc.
We have a great discussion of the state takeover of the liquor trade, and are thirsty for a greater discussion of one of the messiest areas of policy in India — excise laws. Complete prohibition, state monopolies and combinations thereof have all failed. For India today, what would be the ideal way forward to balance freedom and responsible individual choice?
Subbarao knows the Ministry of Finance deeply. This can be a great foundation to discuss its organisational structure. For example, he wrote the cabinet note for the re-creation of the Department of Financial Services (DFS) which was undone by the reforms of the early 1990s. With the strengthening of regulation and supervision of banks in the RBI, it was felt then that a government department for banks would create conflict with the regulator and lead to greater and needless political and bureaucratic interference. The recreation of DFS indeed led to all these. Subbarao has a unique opportunity to view these experiences from the vantage point of creating the DFS and then leading the RBI.
In his years in office, Subbarao carried cudgels for the RBI, championing its sprawling role as “a full service central bank”. Montek Ahluwalia’s memorable turn of phrase, RBI is the “serpent guarding a hundred eggs”, comes to mind. Loyalists have to often defend the indefensible. Subbarao has been the upright IAS official. But as RBI governor, he wrote in opposition of the “examination of concerns around the rule of law” in the terms of reference of the U K Sinha Working Group on Capital Controls. He inherited an RBI that performs regulatory roles while violating constitutional principles in myriad ways. To protect the RBI’s conflicts of interest with monetary policy and debt management functions, his institutional role involved portraying the Ministry of Finance in a one-sided way, as intruding upon the monetary-policy independence of the RBI.
There is a role memoirs play within a paradigm where structural problems are treated as a given. But we know that Subbarao is a deep-thinking economist and not just a mercenary. We are thirsty for a third book — of reflection.
The writer is honorary professor, Centre for Policy Research. Views are personal
